AuditReportWriting.ppt

Proofread your audit report. Have others edit your work. * AUDIT REPORT WRITING The primary purpose of any writing, whether formal audit report or a brief memo is to communicate a message to a reader. Robert Louis Stevenson said “write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood”. In order to do this effectively, the writer must: Consider the audience who will receive and respond to the report. They should be able to understand the report without effort; they should never have to say “what do you mean by this? What evidence do you have? What do you want to do about this?” Use clarity to inform readers of conditions found in your investigation; learning results requires nothing more that a simple and direct statement of the situation encountered. Use persuasive writing to convince your reader to accept the recommendations; show the reader that your conclusions are logical and valid and that suggestions represent an effective and feasible way of correcting the problem. EFFECTIVE WRITING HINTS Use outlines to plan what you will say and refer to it constantly and try to arrange your points in a sequence and put the most important ones first. Start where your readers are; don’t write to a level higher than your reader’s knowledge of it; remember your prime purpose is to explain something, not to prove you are smarter than your readers; attempts to impress the reader are usually self-defeating. Don’t use words, expressions, phrases known only to people with specific knowledge or interests. For example, “based on the results of the statistical tests, it was discovered that the error rate was 7.2% with a 95% confidence level”. It should have been said that “numerous errors were found that support the findings”. Use first-degree words; words that immediately bring an image to mind that don’t need to be translated through the first-degree word before you see the image. For example: 1st degree words 2nd/3rd degree words Face